Alexander v. McKinney’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 federal appellate ·

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[In Whitlock ] we held that a prosecutor acting in an investigatory capacity who fabricates evidence that is used to obtain a wrongful conviction violates a convicted defendant’s clearly established due process ■ rights. There, the plaintiffs, Whitlock and Steidl, alleged that police officers and prosecutors used fabricated evidence, such as pressuring witnesses to concoct stories of having witnessed the crime, to convict the two of a high-profile double homicide. Whitlock and Steidl spent the next seventeen and twenty-one years in prison, respectively.... In both [Zahrey v. Coffey, 221 F.3d 342 (2d Cir.2000), a case highlighted by Alexander] and Whitlock, the alleged liberty deprivation came not from the initial arrest, but from the time spent in confinement after arrest — the eight months Zahrey spent in jail after having his bail revoked and the numerous years Whitlock and Steidl spent in prison after being wrongfully convicted. Zahrey and Whitlock are inapposite because the only liberty deprivation Alexander alleges stems from his initial arrest — he was released on bond that same day.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Saunders-El v. Rohde · Black v. Montgomery County

2. “A plaintiff cannot state a due process claim by combining what are essentially claims for false arrest under the Fourth Amendment and state law malicious prosecution into a sort of hybrid substantive due process claim under the Fourteenth Amendment.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Padilla v. City of Chicago